Empowering users with Microsoft / Office 365

#Microsoft365 – Tired of looking for that “Freeze Panes” command? Only to find it under the “View” Tab and have to look for it again tomorrow? Sounds familiar right?! Yesterday I spoke about adding items to your Office Quick Access Toolbar, but did you know you can actually edit your office ribbon to suit your needs? Today I’ll show you just how to do that. Pretty nifty and saves A LOT OF TIME!

How to customize your Office Ribbon:

For this example, I’ll change the ribbon in Excel. Keep in mind that you’ll have to do this in every program: if you’ve changed the ribbon in Excel – it will not pull through to PowerPoint.

To edit the ribbon, go to the File tab > Options. Under Options you’ll see “Customize Ribbon”

In the below image you’ll see the “Choose the Commands” list on the left, and the “Customize the Ribbon” list on the right.

The Ribbon is made up of Tabs and Groups. When navigating to different tabs, you’ll see that these are broken up into Groups – which helps to categorize and keep similar things together.

First (1) you have to create a new Tab, I’ve called mine “Tracy’s Stuff”. Once you’ve created the Tab – you have to click on it to then rename it (2). Now while standing on the new Tab, click on “New Group” (3). Again you have to stand on the New Group created, to rename it (4). Now that the Tab and various Groups are created you can add commands to it. Click on the group where you would like to add the Command, select the command on the left and then click on the “Add” button in the middle (5). You can add and remove commands in the same way.

Click on OK to save your changes. (Follow the same steps to customize your ribbon in any of the other programs in the MS Office suite). This is what your ribbon will now look like:

And that’s how easy it is, quite awesome to find all the commands you use daily, in one place!!! See you tomorrow.

Resources:

I will write 365 blogs in 365 days around Microsoft 365. I did a similar challenge with Office 365, blogs can be found here. I won’t just be talking about the new Microsoft 365 subscription model. I will be sharing any news, tips and tricks around Office / Office 365 / Windows / Mobility and Security. And let’s not forget all the great new Apps & services available. A lot of what I’ll share on Office and SharePoint will also be applicable to none “Office 365” versions.